


Promises Upheld

by Like_a_Hurricane



Series: Dare to Believe in Us [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Jotunn OC (First of the Three), M/M, Multi, Nifelheim world building again, Shapeshifting, fluffiest fluff I have ever fluffed, shapeshifters are cuddly, twins and magic cause genetics to behave oddly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1318672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The twin offspring of The Three of Asgard and Midgard (including Loki the God of Lies and Mischief and most powerful mage of Asgard since Odin; Tony Stark the first Asgardian-trained human mage in centuries, and the first Jotunn-trained one in millennia; and the fiery Lady Pepper Potts, primary diplomatic interplanetary contact for the whole of the earth) were destined for great things.</p><p>In which the family Loki, Pepper Potts, and Tony Stark have discovered and maintained with each other is one that is viewed form the outside with disbelief, and awe, and they maintain their privacy as best they can, during and after war with the Cancer-verse.</p><p>Also, a glimpse of destiny looming far ahead.</p><p>Sequel to <i>The Fear of Promise</i> which should be read first, if any of this is to make sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises Upheld

The Cancer-verse struck their universe when the twins were four years old.

No one expected them to remember it. They had both been so small in the midst of such chaos. Some of the Avengers and others recalled the lulls during the month-long war against the Cancer-verse. There had been in-between times, usually traveling vast distances and carrying more much-needed supplies across greater distances than Loki had magic to left to spare for quicker transportation.

 

~~

 

Gamora remembered stumbling into the canteen of the Guardians’ main ship and seeing the two children apparently playing with a sleeping wolf that would have, upright, probably been twice the height of either child. The assassin knew the wolf wasn’t truly asleep beyond a very light doze, and paused in the doorway just to observe the odd, quiet moment of something simple and peaceful for the first time in far too long.

The twins spoke like children older than their years, but only a little, and given who their parents were, their having a knack for the spoken word even young wasn’t much of a surprise. The girl was a little taller than her brother, with her fox-red hair pulled back in one elegant plait, with a few smaller and finer braids woven into the strands. She had one brown eye, and one green, and her only freckles seemed to appear as a light sprinkling across the bridge of her nose. Her brother had dark brown hair and bright blue eyes but his smile was full of more sly mischief than his sister’s, which was more brash and bright.

“Father,” the little girl commanded, tugging Loki’s ear. “We’re done napping, so you need to be done napping.”

“You will one day understand just how much I cherish my rest, Nadía dear,” the god rumbled, but with genuine warmth in his voice.

The little boy remained where he had napped: tucked between the wolf’s stomach and tail, so that Loki was slightly curled around him. His sister had slumped across the wolf’s back until the trickster tugged her down and curled around her too, but now she was up on her feet and tugging again at a big, fuzzy black ear.

“Rest is boring,” she said. “Tell him, Firas!”

Her brother laughed at her a little. “No!”

Loki hummed and curled in on himself a little tighter.

His son emitted an annoyed noise at how it jostled him.

She sat down in a huff, face and hands burying into the thick fur at the side of Loki’s neck. “But boring,” she muttered, sounding muffled.

Gamora was a heartless assassin. She was cold and clinically distant and calm. Always calm. Always so very distant.

She was certainly not trying her damnedest not to giggle at the dejected set of a little half-human girl’s shoulders as she pouted and snuggled a large canid-shaped trickster god like he was a giant puppy for her to cuddle with. No. Nope. No _bad case of the warm-and-fuzzies_ happened to Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the galaxy, in the least. Not at all whatsoever.

She giggled once, then swore under her breath.

That totally didn’t count.

“Perhaps, Lady Gamora, you might step into the room and get what you came for, or entertain us at the least,” the god of lies muttered. “Rather than stand there merely staring.”

Nadía’s head snapped up and she stared at the assassin with more wariness and knife-sharp shrewdness than anyone so small should possess. Her eyes were very wide, but there wasn’t actually fear in her expression: just pure surprise, and caution.

Loki opened one eye lazily to meet Gamora’s stare.

She nodded from where she leaned against the doorframe. “I wasn’t expecting dinner and a show. And I didn’t expect the show to resemble some of the cute animal videos the Avengers’ archer keeps hacking my displays with, between battles.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten JARVIS on his side,” the god responded.

“Why are you all out here?” Gamora asked. “This isn’t your usual nap location.”

“Our quarters were not safe, during the last hit we took from raiders,” Loki said. “Perhaps you recall? It was only half an hour ago, after all.”

“Yes, we all noticed the near-death experiences.”

“I knew it would happen, slightly ahead of time,” the trickster said. “It was planned that I would keep them hidden until they were sufficiently far off of our tail. I hid us in here, heavily shielded. This was the most easily fortified of three particular locations that I was sure would remain mostly unharmed.”

“No wonder Rocket couldn’t get in,” the assassin murmured. “He leaves some of his guns in here. Don’t even ask me why.”

“It’s not my fault that he forgot after I told him I relocated them,” Loki sighed.

“We were busy. And we still could’ve used this place for cover during that fire-fight, you know.”

Loki opened his other eye. “You know my priorities.”

“Yeah, we all do.” She sounded not even a little offended, and in fact a bit approving, as she looked at the two kids: Nadía now half-hidden behind one big furry shoulder, while her brother peered over the other, having to stretch up a bit awkwardly from his spot. “You still bored?” she asked the little girl.

“Yeah, a little. I mean, you haven’t exploded anything or changed shape or said anything stupid dangerous,” the girl responded, perfectly frank. “Even though you look like a green Tasha or a small girl Hulk, Miss Gamora.”

Loki emitted a snorting laugh, at that.

Gamora raised an eyebrow, but nodded thoughtfully at that. “I’m about as dangerous as they are, but not to you.”

“You could be,” Firas corrected, tilting his head. “But I’m glad you won’t.”

“In turn, I’m glad your family is on our side,” the assassin said, stepping around them at a respectful distance, and beginning to tap in a few things on one of the wall displays. Space travel, especially their kind, didn’t come with gourmet meals of any kind, but since Tony Stark had made a few selective alterations (some of them magic-based) the food quality had gone from merely tolerable, to actually enjoyable.

Not that the assassin would ever let him know how much she appreciated his alterations making nutritionally-enriched pizza-rolls a main staple of her diet. She spent far too much time on ships that prioritized firepower over anything resembling creature comforts, but that was, after all, where she most felt that she belonged.

Good food, however, she would never, ever turn down.

“Nadía stop touching me.”

“Then move.”

“No.”

Loki lifted his head and caught his daughter’s small arm in his enormous jaw, gentle but very precise. He held for a moment, huffed disapproval, then let go and lowered his head again.

Nadía folded her arms across her chest and sulked.

“Practice your illusions, darling,” the wolf murmured.

She leaned against Loki more heavily and huffed. “I don’t want to.”

The god lifted his head again, this time shooting her a pointed look, as his ears flicked forward. “You are angry when you should not be. Your attitude will not make us more amenable to entertaining you. Instead, you should entertain us and occupy your own thoughts in that way.”

“Don’t want to, now.”

He shifted position slightly, until he could nose at her shoulder. Firas complained, feeling a bit squished now, where the wolf was squeezed in a bit too close around him. Loki glanced his way, met his daughter’s gaze again, and licked her cheek.

She huffed again, but with more amusement this time.

“Father,” Firas growled. “I’m gonna sneeze in your fur.”

Chuckling, the god settled back into his previous position, his head resting on his paws, eyes drifting shut lazily.

By the time Gamora had her food and settled with it at the nearest table facing Loki’s side where the little boy seemed to be peering over the wolf’s back at what his sister was doing, Nadía was playing with a few very simple light-based illusions. The assassin had noticed the thin black bands tied about the little girl’s wrists before, on the first occasion she had met this odd family some months before. She knew some mages, if they manifested very young, could be too out of control for their powers. She did wonder why Nadía wore such simple bands about her wrists, while a more complex version of them, almost like it was expected to have to stretch suddenly, was worn by Firas. She had suspicions, but hadn’t truly believed in them until the small boy suddenly took the shape of a large black feline of some sort, young and a bit clumsy even in another form, and clambered over Loki’s back to land not-quite gracefully beside his sister. After several moments, she began making lights dance across the floor, forming the shapes of small birds and rodents.

For a moment, Firas’ feline-shape was very still, ears high and alert as he stared, long tail beginning to twitch. It lasted all of three seconds before he began chasing the illusory creatures and Nadía began quietly giggling, leading him on more and more involved chases back and forth across the room.

Loki glanced up with one open eye, seemed to approve, and closed his eye again, sighing and stretching out  on his side as they played.

On closer inspection, the trickster was drained, Gamora realized. She had seen this form on him a few times, and this time he looked... dimmer. The luster of his fur was less vibrant, more faded, making him look gray-black, rather than the unnatural blue-black she remembered. It was more than the slightly greenish lighting in the canteen, she knew; he must have used a lot of energy to keep his shields up. Now that the main battle was over, he was making as much effort as possible to reserve the last of his energies, until the threat was fully passed and his lovers returned.

It was good, then, the assassin thought, that the medical bay should be releasing them soon, given that Pepper had little more than a sprained wrist.

As though cued by her thoughts, someone else appeared in the doorway and paused for a moment to take in the scene the two children and their devoted guardian made: the wolf and his pups, those tall ears twitching with their every move, and Gamora’s, and some stirrings all throughout the ship that only heightened senses could detect. Though he appeared to doze, the trickster slept only shallowly, if at all, remaining fully aware of his surroundings. As such, both of his eyes had opened, albeit narrowly, before Tony Stark had even quite reached the door.

There was hesitation in the way Loki didn’t move at all, inhaling slowly through his nose, taking in the inventor’s expression and matching exhaustion, and the faint traces of blood and bruising he could smell in the air: mild injury, good health, emotionally drained but not reeking of fear, and instead smelling only relief and no sorrow. The god exhaled heavily.

Gamora felt some of the hum of the room around her––not unusual in any space vessel, but a bit louder than usual, until it––suddenly cut out. She realized belatedly that Loki’s shields had never actually gone down; they had just relaxed a little, just enough to allow entry to those considered friendly, until that very moment.

Tony strode over and sat on his knees beside the god, who lifted his head only enough to rest it on the inventor’s thigh once Tony had settled. A few seconds later, he shifted into his more natural shape and wrapped both arms around Tony’s waist, brow resting against the inventor’s hip. Loki made a low, inquiring noise.

“They need help heating the opposite wing. Climate control systems got hit. Pep is keeping people stuck there from freezing to death for about another half hour, before JARVIS and the others should be finished with the repairs,” Tony said. He nodded briefly at Gamora.

She waved him off, finishing her last pizza roll and returning her tray to the cleaning chute on her way out.

Only a brief backward glance did she make, when she heard both children realize Tony was there too. The high shout of “Dad!” from Nadía was overlapped with a raucous mewling growl of surprise from her brother before they were, both bipedal once Firas shifted with apparently no effort, launching themselves at him, giving Loki hardly any time to move away and thus dodge getting accidentally kneed or kicked, as the two children threw themselves into the inventor’s arms. He did move in time, but just barely.

Watching in amusement for just a moment, Loki waited until first Tony, then the children glanced his way again. Then he sat up fully, wrapped long arms around all three of them, and pulled them into a loose and playful embrace, making them all laugh.

Gamora shook her head at them, and strode away down the hall.

 

~~

 

Steve remembered a similar occasion, on that same ship.

He had noticed Loki went through a series of illusion exercises with Nadía every morning before breakfast. Usually Firas (most often in one animal form or another, about the trickster’s person be it over his shoulder or curled up in his lap) dozed through them almost petulantly, but Steve had noticed that the young boy always had at least one eye half-open and paying attention.

Nadía was already adept at simple illusions.

Steve was a bit mesmerized by it at first, as Loki walked her through exercises almost meditative in nature, and she slowly learned different techniques for manipulating light. One morning, Pepper settled in beside him and he instantly felt guilty for getting caught staring.

It was just... he had never seen Loki so patient, or seen any child as young as Nadía in possession of _magic and illusions_ before. And it was, frankly, heart-warming.

“Sorry,” he said quietly. He knew Pepper Potts well enough by then, and furthermore knew how she was about her family, how Tony was, and how Loki was, and he knew all three of them had decided to send Pepper to speak to him about this.

It was acutely uncomfortable.

“I know you don’t mean anything by it,” Pepper assured. “But you have questions, and so do other people. I want you to be able to answer them.”

Steve glanced at her questioningly. “Why?”

“You’re an outsider, you’re the most honest man on this ship, and if you’re confident that we’re not a threat or putting anyone at risk, that goes a long way towards keeping the peace,” she responded quietly.

“No one is going to-”

Pepper held up a hand and raised both eyebrows pointedly. “Steve. Ask.”

He shook his head slowly, but conceded enough to inquire, “The bracelets?” At her surprised look, he shrugged. “A few people on the ship seem to look at them nervously, and all of them know more about magic than I do.”

“She’s... like Loki was, when he was her age. Her magic is very strong, and she isn’t nearly strong enough, mentally and physically, to control it. Those bracelets are the same ones Loki wore, before he was old enough to start learning control of more and more of his power at a time, with age.”

“And the... more complicated-looking collar on your son?”

“He will have magic, with time. We can’t know when, but it’s complicated. He can shape-shift, but he’s too young to fully grasp where the limits are. The collar prevents him trying to get too large, too small, or go to pieces.”

Steve’s eyebrows raised. “Like... Like Loki when he does the flock thing?”

“With the ravens, yes.”

“That’s always creepy.”

Pepper chucked at him.

“So Nadía is limited by those bracelets,” Steve mused.

“She is.”

“To just light?”

“Mostly,” Pepper agreed. “If she were... _stressed_ , she could do far more, but that’s a failsafe Loki built in.”

Steve nodded. “Good.”

She smiled a bit sadly in response. “It could go either way, actually.”

The soldier’s brow furrowed, but the look of deep concern on Pepper’s face spoke volumes enough, and he nodded. “So it’s no guarantee.”

“Only a chance,” she agreed. “Nothing more.”

They both ate in silence for a few moments.

“Whose exactly...” Steve stared, with open hesitation.

“Magic is complicated,” Pepper interrupted. “Both are ours. All of ours.”

The soldier nodded. “That’s... seriously?”

“It’s really common for twins, particularly when one or more parent has a gift for magic. So far as we can tell, most likely genes that Firas possesses would suggest he’s more closely related to Tony than to Loki, and the reverse is true when it comes to Nadía, but there’s a lot of overlap. Tony can’t shape-shift, for example.” She looked at him pointedly. “And brown eyes are a dominant trait neither Loki nor I have, yet look at Nadía’s beautiful eyes.” _One brown, one green: a gift from each father._

Slowly, Steve nodded. “Okay... wow.”

“What?”

“I... there are things I knew I could never expect from the future, and things I could never have ever dreamt of seeing, and this is more of the latter,” he responded. “You three really... I mean...”

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“It’s amazing, I mean. You all sort of are.” He was genuinely sincere, impressed and a little bit in awe. He also knew she would have trouble believing this from anyone else outside of the other Avengers, but that she needed to hear it, too.

“Oh.” She smiled softly. “Thank you.”

“You have any questions?” Steve asked.

Pepper pushed her food around a bit. “I worry.”

“You’re a good mother; of course you do.”

She smiled at him again, more brightly this time, but there was still an edge of weariness to it. “They look at us oddly, sometimes, like they know they aren’t our highest priority, but they can’t hold it against us. Is that... can we trust that, Steve?”

The soldier nodded. “They look at the three of you, and how you all protect each other and your kids, and it’s... for me it’s a reminder of everything I’m even fighting for in the first place: families, people who love each other unconditionally, and the promise of a brighter future. I think people like... well, like the Guardians, being sort of a group of orphans like most of the Avengers but without a planet to call their home, even––you’ve got all the things some of them never knew, or never wanted to admit, they might’ve wanted in their lives. And to all of us, you’re worth protecting, because what you all have is rare and precious.” He smiled a bit more wickedly for a moment, then, as another thought occurred to him. “And it’s an investment, really.”

“An investment?”

“Well... look at all of you. You’re all going to live a long time into the future, after all this, once we’ve won, and your kids are going to be forces to be reckoned with, aren’t they?” Steve mused. “Don’t even pretend you can’t see that.”

Her smile turned very warm and a little secretive as she stared down at her plate, but the little glow of pride and mischief was still more than obvious. “Well, yes.”

“It’s a good idea for people to respect quasi-immortals. You’re sort of like gods, now. Not just Loki, but all of you.” He looked up in time to see Tony throw in his own illusions for a few of the more complex exercises.

Seeing his intent study of the games, Pepper chuckled. “She’ll learn a lot slower than Tony, don’t worry,” she assured. “His gift woke up very late, after the Doom incident. He had to learn fast, because it all broke loose at once and at his age, trying to contain it with bands like that can actually cause some pretty severe problems.”

“Does it bother you? Not having magic like that?” Steve asked, curious.

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t need it. After having Extremis as long as I have... the fire is enough. I don’t need more tricks, and having seen some of what Tony went through over it, I didn’t think I’d want my gift woken up even if I’d had one, for a while.” She sipped her coffee.

The super-soldier stared at her for a few long moments.

After a while, she shot him an odd look. “What?”

“Past tense,” he said.

She looked sheepish. “Well... I’m no mage. I just had a more minor sort of knack, is all. It’s not very strong. I can’t see the future or anything.”

“Uh...”

“Sight. I can... see things differently than I used to. I can see magic the way they can, almost, but I can’t pull at it. I can see if someone is lying or if something is poisonous, that sort of thing. It’s useful, but not exactly...” She gestured vaguely. “It was Loki’s old teacher who said I had a dormant form of it. She’s the one Tony gets his lessons from, too, and she said she could wake it up. It took me a while to come to terms with it, but once I did, it sort of... I can see what my children could always see, and that’s important to me. I understand them so much better.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Okay then.”

“Any other questions?”

“Uh... the name Firas, I guess?”

“It was the name of one of Yinsen’s sons,” she explained, knowing Steve knew enough about Tony’s experiences in Afghanistan to understand the importance of that. “And it means ‘perspicacity’. We all liked it.”

“Perspicacity?”

“It’s having an insightful sort of shrewdness and capability to keenly understand things and grasp their concepts quickly.”

“I see why you all like it,” Steve mused. “It suits all of you.”

She laughed a little, at that.

Finishing her coffee and the last few bites of her breakfast, Pepper rose to her feet and kissed him on the top of his head briefly. “Thank you, Steve.”

“You’re welcome. And, uhm. Thanks.” He watched her put her tray and cup away on one side of the canteen, and stroll over to rejoin her family. She leaned one hip against Loki’s side and picked up Firas, who was in the form of a large python draped about the trickster’s shoulders. Once in Pepper’s arms, he shifted into his more natural, human-like shape and continued watching the illusions practice with large eyes even as his mother kissed his temple; although his hands clung tight to her shirt and he leaned into the kiss, then let his head rest against her chin as he kept staring.

Steve smiled at them all and shook his head slowly. Order out of chaos was one thing he had learn to expect in his life, but never could he have expected a family like this to be such an excellent example.

 

~~

 

No one, save perhaps Loki and his children, really expected the twins to remember much of that war.

They remembered everything, but spoke little of it, save to each other.

“They had a map of things, do you remember?” Firas asked. “Events and things. They knew about stuff before it happened, all the time.”

“They always have,” Nadía said.

“But they don’t look at the map much anymore. It’s still around.”

His sister frowned a little, her brow furrowed. “I remember some things from the map, but it’s blurry. More blurry than most things in those memories, like we’re not supposed to know.”

“We should find it.”

She shook her head slowly. They were almost twelve now, and the desire to cause mischief was most definitely strong in them. “We should ask Hel, first. We visit her next week, and she tells us all sorts of things they won’t or can’t.”

“How would she know about the map?”

“How _wouldn’t_ she?” Nadía chided.

Firas frowned, and thought about it. “Yeah, okay.”

 

~~

 

To say that Hel and Fenrir were fond of their youngest siblings would be one of the vastest understatements in history.

Fenrir wrestled with Firas––the younger in the largest wolf-form he could muster, which was still only a bit larger than any wolf of earthly origins, while the elder was only slightly shorter than a small horse. Fenrir played fairly gently with his half-brother, and often let the smaller shifter climb all over him, as he shook and tried to fling him off.

Hel giggled at them shamelessly. Half-grown as they were now, she could see the beginnings of the adults they would eventually become.

Nadía was thin, slightly coltish overall, and a little tall for her age, with cheekbones like Loki’s; her smile was wild and almost ferocious most of the time, but when her heart was genuinely touched, she was capable of warmth like her mother’s, and her whole face lit up with it like sunshine. It was clear she would gain elegance, with time, but not without remembering what it was like to be awkward and lacking in control of finesse.

When wearing his own shape, Firas was only a bit shorter than his sister, stocky in a way that suggested his height would be a few years yet to come, and very abrupt in its arrival when it struck. His shaggy brown hair was usually well-groomed enough, and his large, bright eyes peering up through his eyelashes and maybe a few locks of hair, were a weapon he used shamelessly. He was the more restless of the two, and though his smiles were softer, there was more subtlety about him, and it was clear he had control of himself well enough, especially his appearances and expressions, but chose not to exert it to contain his own boundless supply of youthful energy. He also had a knack for constructing elaborate little traps, pranks, and other setups, often exceeding his sister’s capacity for more magic-based mischief-making; although when they worked together, the results could be a little terrifying.

While the First of the Three of Nifelheim spoke to Loki and Pepper, and Tony wound up being dragged into the wrestling match with the wolves somehow, Nadía made her way over to her older sister and tugged at her sleeve.

Hel looked down at her, and then immediately knelt down to pull her into a welcoming embrace. “Dear girl, you’ve become so tall.”

“Still not half ‘s’tall ‘s you,” Nadía muttered, muffled against the queen’s shoulder before they pulled back enough to look at one another properly. She seemed surprised that she had to tilt her head down, rather than up, to hold her sister’s stare like this, now. “Actually, did you shrink?”

Hel chuckled. “No, dear girl; no, I did not.”

“I want to ask you questions,” said her sister.

The goddess tilted her head slightly, one eyebrow raising. “Dangerous questions?” she asked.

“I think so.”

Stroking her cheek, Hel nodded slightly. “Come inside, then, while they’re distracted. Hretha will know where to look for me, in a few minutes, if it should come to that.” She then took Nadía’s hand lightly in her own, and led her from the weather-shielded courtyard, and into the nearest hall. They settled on a couch in a room not far from their kin.

“There’s a map they have, isn’t there? It’s got different times and things, events marked in it?” Nadía asked, frowning a little, her brow furrowed. “It told them things before they happened, they could predict stuff, to defeat the Cancer-verse. Right?”

Hel nodded. “They do have such a map.”

“How?”

The queen of Helheim considered. “It has to do with how your parents truly met, actually. They were once worlds apart, as you’ve doubtlessly guessed.”

Nadía made a face. “Well, people ask us a lot of questions like about what it’s like and all, and I know why we’re not supposed to... to call Loki father in front of people in Midgard.” She frowned a bit at that. “Which is stupid.”

“It is,” Hel conceded. “People are very foolish, about some things. In all the realms there is such foolishness in one form or another, about different things, and it is the nature of those like our kin to make people aware of such things, and question them and one day overthrow them, but there is a balance to be struck, challenging such notions, when one is possessed of certain vulnerabilities.”

“Like my brother and I, you mean?” the younger girl asked quietly.

Her sister nodded. “Also all of your parents are vulnerabilities to each other. Loki would do anything to protect Pepper and Tony, and even more to protect all of us, his children. He would not be able to be happy, if he did not know you were all safe. I have seen it. And the same is true for Tony, and for Pepper, in regards to each other, and Loki, and you their children.”

Nadía nodded. “We know, too. We know it doesn’t hurt him that we act different in public in Midgard, but it’s still hard, sometimes, not acting the same in front of people there, when I really just want to treat him like our father...” She played with the end of her braid a bit. “You did that, too, though? Father mentioned, but he said it was your story to tell: how you hid your nature from Aesir, like we hide some of father’s.”

“Yes... it was when I lived in Asgard, at about your age,” Hel offered. “I looked very different from most Aesir, and I was... I was very tired of being feared everywhere I went. I was sick of the constant distrustful stares and intrusive questions I kept getting from people, and I told father I wanted to wear a glamor to hide like this.” She waved a hand, and illusion concealed all of the darker half of her behind an illusion mirroring the coloration of her paler one. “He has always loved me as I am, and I have always loved myself as I am because of his devotion, and my mother’s, and how well they raised me to appreciate the beauty of the fey and Jotunn heritage which contribute to my natural appearance. He did not want me to hide, and it hurt him, that I so wanted to, and I told him that I knew it would, but explained my reasons.”

Hel gestured expansively wit a slight grimace. “It really was not loathing of my own looks... it was exasperation with the constant reactions I got from others. He eventually understood, and swore not to interfere. He let me feign normalcy of appearance for a few years, and in those years people did not look at me very strangely any longer. I let them believe I had grown out of it somehow. Some correctly guessed it to be illusory, but most didn’t care enough to give it that much thought. When I was more comfortable with Asgard, and also knew it would not be my permanent home, I stopped wearing such illusions. It disconcerted some, but not all, of those who had previously been keen to be my friends or my lovers. I only kept those who were worth keeping, and comfortably so.”

“I’ll be able to do that too, someday, right?”

“Stop letting people believe what they want to, by restraining some things and keeping them hidden?” Hel asked. “Yes, but it will take time. With Midgard, it may take a very long time, but I have no doubt that our father will speed things up as best he might feel capable.”

“Oh good,” said Firas’ voice, shortly before his sister elbowed the air next to her on the couch and the illusion he was hiding behind disappeared. “Fenrir is covering for me,” he said, at Hel’s amused, inquiring look.

“I do recognize his spell-work, by now, yes,” the queen mused.

“The map, though,” the young shifter insisted. “What is it? Where is it from? Why don’t they really use it anymore?”

“The simplest answer is to that last question, and it is: because it mostly ran out of viable data several years ago. It only covered about five years into the future, when they acquired it,” Hel said. “It was the product of a great deal of data left to them by a traveler from another universe. He... had lost all of his family to the Cancer-verse, and had been jumping between universes ever since then, arming them against that disaster, and fighting alongside them to prevent it ever happening again, wherever he possibly could. He tried to arrive in time to meet his family, but sometimes he... missed. In his jump into our universe, he arrived years early, before his lovers had even gotten to know him properly. He was dying, and given it was his last jump, he needed to find them, he needed their trust, and he needed to get to Asgard,” Hel recounted. “As such, he had to tell more of the absolute truth than anyone would believe without his solemn word sworn over a dozen times within an hour.”

“It was father?” Firas asked, his eyes huge and worried.

“Not quite. It was another version of him. You’re aware that there are multiple universes, of course, having known about the Cancer-verse and how we all fought against it, from so young as you did,” Hel said softly. “You know what it did, and continues to do even now, to other universes it cracks its way into, yes?”

The children nodded fearfully.

“That Loki, the Traveler, was from one that he could not save. He was the only one to escape, and even then, only after he had already lost everyone he loved. Every one of us,” the queen recounted. “I did not see him until after his death, but monsters from all over time, from multiple universes or the depths of the voids _between_ all came to my kingdom, hungering and clamoring for a chance to claim his soul. He had saved his family in other universes over a hundred times, counting this one, because he brought us the information we needed in order to best plan to fight off the Cancer-verse, and keep all of our family alive. His information was what made up the map.”

“Why can’t I remember it clear?” Nadía asked.

“Because, when you were small, you could barely understand it, which was as it should have been. For you to look back on it, when you were older but before its predictions ran out, might have altered your futures too starkly, in ways that would have been harmful to the flow of time,” Hel explained. “For that same reason, the Norns bid me remove a few dozen data-points from that map, and damage others: there are things about the future that cannot be known by those who must do them, without altering the outcome, and these fixed points in time are vital to our universe, and the survival of all those connected to the astral plane.”

“The Traveler... told them about us?” Firas asked, sounding wary.

“He first only told our father, by sharing a brief collage of experience, and some choice imagery, to show his other self all that the Traveler himself had lost, and thus what our father, our Loki, might still lose, in time. He didn’t have time for more involved arguments, given he was dying at the time,” said the queen. “They did not know your names, your personalities, and barely had a glimpse of what you might someday look like, but it was not that knowledge or awareness which has guided their lives. You entered their lives when least expected, as it was meant to be, and they had no preconceived notions to hold you to, wise as they were to avoid that. They would not do such a thing to you. They know you only as you are, and as you have been with them. There are no ghosts, no expectations to meet.”

Firas nodded, looking a little awestruck, and confused.

“Why did you believe you had to ask me of this?” Hel inquired. “You could have easily asked any of your parents.”

The two looked at each other, and then back at their elder sister. “Only father really knows about how much we remember,” Nadía said.

“We know because we remembered Gamora, the first time she visited earth after, and all the jokes she made,” her brother added. “And mom got very quiet. I think she worried for us, remembering all those things.”

Hel nodded. “They should know. All of them. You can tell them all that I’ve told you, but you must also tell them how much you remember, and not be afraid to talk to them about anything like this. They won’t be afraid of you, though they may worry for you, that is something they will always do.” She smiled at them with no small amount of affection. “Trust me, I’ve tried to stop father alone, and found it impossible, and I’ve been at it a long time now. They worry because they love you, and you can, and should, trust them to see you as you are without any fear.”

“No secrets?” Firas asked.

“I never said that.” The queen winked at him. “I will keep whatever secrets you may ask of me, but there is a difference between mischief, and curiosity, and hiding something as important as yourselves, and your thoughts and feelings, from our kin. Do you see?”

They both nodded.

“Thank you,” Nadía said, at the same time her brother said, “Thanks,” and then they both said in near-unison, “we understand.”

Hel wondered if that would ever stop being just a little unnerving. Twins, she knew, did these things, by virtue of their natures and shared similarities in their genetics and environments alike, but knowing that did not actually lessen the eerie-factor, when they did things in sync at the most unpredictable times. She stood and held out her hands to both of them, concealing Firas casually with a spell, before pulling them lightly to their feet and leading them back out to the courtyard that the rest of their kin still occupied. Loki was first to notice their return, followed by Hretha, and Hel offered them both a calm and reassuring smile, as she released her sister’s hand and set her free. She could feel when Firas crashed into the maintained-illusion of himself Fenrir had been performing a play-fighting game of keep-away with, his goal being to keep Tony from the smaller wolf.

Once the illusion dropped, while Tony’s vision of it was obscured by a twist of Fenrir’s body, Firas climbed up his older brother’s back, taking a more panther-like form partway up, and causing the wolf to yelp in mock-outrage at the feel of those sharper claws. Fenrir began trying to buck him off, while still playing keep-away with Tony, who was now laughing at them both all the more raucously.

“All is well?” Loki asked lightly, when the queen rejoined himself, Pepper, and Hretha the First of Nifelheim’s Three.

“All is well,” Hel assured.

Pepper shot her a pointed look.

The queen of Helheim chuckled softly at being seen through. “She had questions. I assured her they were ones she need not fear to ask of any of you. That is all. It is nothing harmful, or I would tell you myself, but I would rather let them go to you themselves, instead. Let them, on their own time.”

Pepper and Loki both nodded, looking thoughtful.

“Thank you,” Pepper said. “We will.”

Hel smiled at her warmly in response, before Hretha asked her a question about political matters south of the land of the dead, drawing her attention away.

 

~~

 

After another hour or so with Hretha, followed by a few more hours at a large feast held in the great hall of Nifelheim’s vast palace, wherein the Three of Midgard and Asgard met several newly influential members within Nifelheim’s court, Pepper, Loki, and Tony Stark were fairly drained. They were even more so by the time they made it back to their quarters in Hel’s palace later that night. Loki had one twin over each shoulder, both of them letting their limbs hang limply to exaggerate their own tiredness.

“You should both go to your beds,” the trickster told them.

“Nnno,” Nadía huffed. “I waited all day to ask questions and things.”

All three parents exchanged glances. Tony looked the most questioning. Loki mouthed, ‘They spoke with Hel earlier’ and the inventor nodded, reminded of when Pepper had mentioned it in passing at some point during the feast.

“We asked Hel things,” Firas added. “She told us we should ask you.”

“She told me about her Aesir glamours, too, I see why you didn’t, father,” his sister threw in, squirming a little as neither of them were set down just yet.

Loki grimaced a little, but reminded himself that he trusted Hel, even more than himself, to have told the tale as well as it deserved.

Tony asked, “What else did you ask her about?”

“The map,” Firas said. “The map you used a lot against the Cancer-verse.”

The silence that followed was a bit ominous.

“And that’s why we asked Hel first,” Nadía sighed, but she sounded hesitantly amused. “Were we wrong to ask?”

“No,” Pepper said gently, her eyes on Loki, who was the least surprised, and also notably a bit reluctant to meet their eyes. She raised her eyebrows at him.

Loki nodded and summoned a quick silence around them; the twins would hear them murmuring, but not be able to distinguish any words, or that there was a spell doing the distortion. “Yes?”

“You’re not surprised,” Pepper said.

“I... am not.”

“This is a Jotunn thing?”

“Also Aesir,” Loki said. “It is... our development, when very young, is different from that of humans, when it comes to memory. We remember matters very clearly, starting from a much younger age than most humans, usually as soon as we can walk.”

Pepper and Tony looked at each other, then back to Loki, the silent question obvious enough to make the trickster look a bit sheepish.

“I... did not realize the difference until your reaction, when they re-met Gamora last year,” Loki admitted. “The children realized immediately as well, and also discerned that I was unsurprised, and the difference must lie in their non-human heritage. I was waiting for them to discuss it with me, before bringing it up with the both of you, but as usual, life has perpetually side-tracked us all. It got lost amidst myriad other matters, particularly the occasion they managed to sneak off to Dvergarheim two weeks later.”

“They probably did that to distract us from the memory thing,” Tony mused.

The trickster snorted, smile faint and caught between chagrin and pride. “I would not be altogether surprised by that, yes.”

“Is it...” Pepper hesitated. “The reason I was... even a little okay with them seeing all of what they saw through that time, was because I didn’t believe they would remember all of it. I felt bad enough that they had to go through it at all.”

Loki nodded. “I know. I had not... I had been unaware of that, until very recently, and I am _so_ sorry, but know they are not damaged by it. They do not have nightmares about _that_. They do recall fear, and glimpses of things which, had they happened later in their lives, might have horrified them, but they do still remember those things as they were seen through the eyes of a child. They are well, Pepper. We did what was necessary to keep them safe, and if I had believed they would be harmed by staying with us, I would have raised those same concerns. You both know our children as well as I, and you know they are far stronger than they seem, even to us,” he reassured.

“He’s right,” Tony said. “There’s no trauma, here. Just curiosity.”

Pepper nodded, exhaling slowly. “Okay. You’re right. I shouldn’t worry. I just-” She let herself be pulled into a loose embrace by the inventor’s arm and huffed a sigh. “They’re okay. They were never hurt. I’d have noticed.”

“We all would’ve,” Tony assured. “Okay?”

She nodded, and he let her go reluctantly.

Loki lowered the shield. “The map,” he said lightly, to their children.

The twins were nervous now, tangibly fretting and tensed a bit where they still rested over his shoulders. He could feel them exchange glances.

“Yes?” Nadía responded.

“How much did your sister tell you?” Loki asked, lowering them to the floor before taking a seat on the nearby couch and facing them. Pepper sat next to him on his left, and Tony sat next to her. They all sat in open, welcoming positions their children knew well, and accepted as invitation. Firas took smaller, more cub-like feline form and sprawled across Loki and Pepper’s laps, while Nadía squeezed between Pepper and Tony, folding her hands in her lap and glancing back and forth between her two more human parents like she was worried about them.

“She told us it was a gift, from a traveler,” Firas growled.

“No defensive growling,” Pepper chided.

Her son grumbled briefly, but took humanoid shape again, his head resting on the arm of the couch, the rest of him now extending far enough he lay across Nadía’s lap and his feet rested on Tony’s. It was his sister who pushed at his legs and sent him sprawling to the floor with a yelp.

“I didn’t sign up to be part of your body-pillow, don’t be rude,” Nadía chastised.

Firas scowled up at her for a few seconds before slinking over to settle between Loki and Pepper, his arms crossed over his chest.

The trickster mussed his hair and began to scratch fingernails back and forth across the boy’s neck, causing Firas’ eyelids to droop and his head to loll forward after several seconds. His arms and shoulders relaxed too.

“The Traveler was another version of you, right father?” his sister asked.

“He was,” Loki confirmed. “He conducted one-hundred and seventy-four jumps to different universes.”

“Because he lost his family?” his son mumbled.

“Yes,” Pepper said. “All of us.”

“Hel said he got here early, so he gave you all the stuff in the map, and other things,” Nadía added.

“You’ve got more questions about that than she answered, don’t you?” Tony mused, elbow nudging her arm lightly.

“A little,” she admitted, half-smiling up at him. “It made me sort of realize I never knew how we got here, all of us.” She looked at all of them curiously. “How did you fall in love? I mean... the more I thought about what Hel said the more... really awkward it sort of sounded?”

“Super awkward,” Firas mumbled, still not lifting his head where Loki kept scratching lightly across the base of his skull and the nape of his neck. “Because that was after the whole Chitauri in New York thing, right?”

“Yep. Loki threw me out a window and everything,” Tony responded.

Firas chuckled, head coming up, then, as he looked at his parents curiously. “So you were all enemies?”

“I was out of town,” Pepper said. “So only in spirit, I suppose. I was angry at both of them, after the bomb incident, though.”

“Which you’re not allowed to do again, still, right?” Nadía asked, leaning a bit more heavily against Tony’s shoulder for a second. “Dad?”

“Right,” he agreed, with a petulant sigh. He smiled sheepishly when both the trickster and Pepper glared at him. “Seriously! I won’t! I did promise!”

“And you both know what happened after the invasion, already,” Loki said.

“You got taken back to Asgard, and then escaped after uncle Thor broke you out to save all the nine realms, and Aunt Jane,” Firas said. “Where did you go after you escaped, father?”

Loki grinned widely. “I set about proving a point to Asgard, in my ways.”

“He impersonated Odin for a few years,” Tony simplified.

“And he did a better job of if than the All-Father had for quite some time,” Pepper added, “except he also got very bored.”

“So very, _very_ bored,” the trickster concurred, with feeling. “I do not strongly recommend kingship, particularly of such a stagnant kingdom as Asgard, unless you find yourself very even-tempered and nigh-infinitely patient, later in life, my dears.”

“But what did you do?” Nadía asked.

“As myself, I established diplomatic relations between Nifelheim and Asgard for the first time since the icing-over of Jotunnheim, brought Jotunnheim’s kingdoms under the eyes and hands of the Three in Nifelheim, and through that also created lasting peace between both of those two realms and Asgard, as well as making arrangements for the thawing of Nifelheim, with the aid of other mages from all throughout the realms,” Loki recounted. “As Odin, I stopped two wars in Alfheim, and as both he and myself depending on the particular worlds, I opened ancient paths between the realms to mages of all the other realms save Muspellheim and Svartalfhiem, as well as Nifelheim where they had means of their own for travel, thus facilitating more trade in technology and culture than had been possible since long before the time of King Bor.”

“I don’t know what half of that means quite, but it sounds awesome,” Firas said, grinning. “But also a little boring, with all the peace and diplomacy and stuff. Well, diplomatic stuff _can_ be fun, but that sounds like it took _really long_.”

“It did,” the trickster agreed. “Such is the problem with being king of a realm like Asgard. It’s obsession with balance does allow its people to thrive and live very long and prosperous lives, but it also means that all changes to ways of life and other matters usually tend to happen slowly. That is why all of that took me over two years.”

“Why not Muspellheim?” Firas asked.

“I offered. They rather violently declined,” Loki explained.

His daughter then asked, “When did you stop being king?”

“When Thor showed up with these two mortals in tow, who were half-carrying a dying version of myself from another universe, who in turn kept insisting that the pair of them were very important,” the trickster responded, with affectionate sarcasm.

Nadía sniggered. “Really?”

“Really,” Tony assured. “We were a bit perturbed.”

Firas giggled softly, too, then inquired, “How did you get there?”

“Tony and I were in the tower, talking about Extremis, when JARVIS reported something odd happening in the lab,” Pepper began.

“He said that ‘Alarms indicated a sudden energy surge, but then all evidence of it, save my own memory, abruptly vanished from the grid within thirty seconds.’ Plus, all codes used for the alterations were my own personal ones, but given that I wasn’t actually in the lab, that was a bad sign,” Tony extrapolated.

“In retrospect, the fact he had all of your codes memorized and accessible should’ve been our first clue,” the redhead pointed out.

“Yeah, but it still wouldn’t have made any of it seem more believable or anything,” said the inventor. “Our Traveler appeared not long after, hands held up like he was expecting police or something. He looked like he was trying to reassure us he was harmless, even before he opened his mouth, but we weren’t exactly buying it.”

“I threatened him visibly with Extremis, and stood between him and Tony, which... had a slightly unanticipated effect,” Pepper recounted.

Tony made a face. “He looked sort of gutted, then burst out laughing.”

“Sounds about right,” Loki mused.

“He swore on his soul that he wouldn’t hurt us and had no plans to do so, that he wasn’t from our universe, and that he was dying, and eventually he collapsed a bit, because his legs wouldn’t hold him up,” Pepper continued. “We came closer, and he briefly explained that he was from an alternate future and had arrived to warn us that there was a threat coming. When we asked him why he came to us, he sort of explained that, in his life, Tony and I were very important to him. Eventually, he admitted that we’d been in love, which... I hadn’t even met your father, so it came as a bit of a shock.”

“He brought data with him, heavily encrypted,” the trickster cut in, “and recordings from us all, from previous jumps,” Loki said quietly. “He gave most of them to you then, did he not?”

“He did,” Pepper confirmed. “Except some he originally wanted burned with him, but he eventually gave them to you instead. Those were the more personal ones.”

“We called Thor,” Tony said. “We persuaded Thor. Pep and I got it into our heads to help Traveler-guy to his feet and with the whole walking business. He was really sick, from a virus that ate away at his magic.”

Both children looked horrified by that.

“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty,” the inventor sighed.

“As Odin, I cleared the Throne room as soon as they arrived, and I realized Thor seemed to be accompanied by someone suspiciously very similar to my true self. When Thor refused to leave, I teleported him out and had... rather frank words with myself.”

“Hel said he showed you... us,” Firas said.

“He showed me all that he had lost. I saw Asgard in ruins, I saw him staying by Hel and Fenrir as they were taken by the virus that would eventually infect him, too, and I saw, briefly, older memories including a glimpse of his youngest children. The Traveler dared not keep more than that outside his own memories, after having made multiple jumps where he landed too early. They did look like you as much as he resembled me, but I saw no more than that image. It was fed into his locket from one of the memory cards, which I later shared.”

“But only after all of the events and data relating to you by which we might have traced back your births to any specific time vanished from the map,” Pepper said. “There was necessary uncertainty.”

“Hel mentioned that, too,” Nadía said. “But you still haven’t explained what else happened, with the Traveler.”

“I released Odin from slumber, at his instruction,” Loki said, “after, rather impulsively, gifting a few golden apples along with Asgardian citizenship, before giving up all that power: to both the mortals present, and one to Thor for him to give to Jane, mostly to annoy Odin. I then explained at length to Odin what I had done while he slept, and to my surprise I had more than Thor’s support to bolster my arguments and give credence to my diplomatic immunity and political standing with respect to Jotunnheim and Nifelheim,” Loki continued.

“You had easy points to support,” Pepper murmured, blushing only a little.

The trickster chuckled softly and continued, “Odin was forced to release all legal holds upon me and any remaining charges from Asgardian courts, and Thor made no attempts to interfere with us when we departed. Thus unhindered, I delivered myself, Tony, Pepper and the Traveler to Avengers tower.”

“The Traveler died very soon after,” Pepper added, looking somber.

“We agreed to get to know each other while preparing for the whole Cancer-verse apocalypse thing, and made a few key promises about our intentions not to kill each other so long as no deep betrayals or anything might’ve happened. We had a good chat going,” Tony recounted, “until Hel showed up and threatened to maybe slice open Loki’s throat a bit.”

“What?” Firas squawked.

“She didn’t mean it, darling,” Loki said. “We never do, she and I. It is just a part of our natures.”

“Why did she need your help?” queried Nadía.

Pepper shot her daughter an amused and slightly chagrinned look, hearing her sound so unfazed by her sister and father having quite such a dispute, and furthermore discern immediately that Hel had needed aid, rather than been truly malevolent.

“That would be in no small part because the means by which the Traveler kept the viral plague in his system contained, was by binding it to his own soul, which he bound within his own flesh and blood,” Loki explained. “His soul had become, quite suddenly, a valuable commodity throughout the multiverse, which he had apparently collected quite a number of enemies within.”

“ _Ohhh_. I see. She said they were messing with her kingdom: all sorts of monsters and things,” Firas said, like that made the whole thing with her threatening their father’s jugular make that much more sense.

“That took him and Hel both a while to finish up with,” Tony said.

“He came back, in the end. He was heavily singed and drained of magic, but otherwise mostly intact,” Pepper added. “And we... by the time I found him on our couch the next morning, all of us had watched the recordings from the other jumps, and we were curious. There’s only so long you can see yourself that happy, in so many little variations, that you can’t help but want to find out if maybe they’re all onto something. We invited Loki into our lives, and slowly we came to really care for each other, and need one another. We fit well, and only became closer and more determined to hold onto what we had with each other, over time.” She looked up and met Loki’s gaze, then, smiling warmly at the open expression of adoration on his face, as Tony leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“It was still pretty awkward and messy, of course,” the inventor added.

“The tabloids still have no idea what to think anymore,” Loki mused. “One day, I’m certain baiting them won’t be so entertaining. Thankfully, that day has not yet come.”

“They do have a habit of missing the heart of the matter, every single time,” Pepper mused, glancing at the titanium-gold alloy band around Loki’s left ring-finger, which matched one on her own, and on Tony’s; there were no precious stones in any of them, but three names were inscribed on the inner side, on each one.

“Because they’re still trying to find my mysterious fiancée,” Loki mused.

“And because they assume we’ve eloped,” Tony sighed.

“I could tell them,” Nadía said lightly. “And Dr. Bruce said if they ever actually ran paternity tests on us, there would be an awful lot of confusion.”

The inventor snorted at the thought despite himself, and raised both hands in apology and surrender when both of his lovers shot him dark looks. “Sorry! It’s just... well, Bruce has a fair point.”

Pepper and Loki exchanged glances, then shrugged it off, because they really couldn’t argue that.

“I would be happy to let you,” Loki said, “if it would not put you, and everyone in our homes across Midgard, into utterly unpredictable peril, based on threats from enemies who lash out for blind ideological reasons.”

“I could tell them my dad is a god and they can go hang,” Firas muttered.

“ _Firas_ ,” Pepper warned. “No threatening people with hanging. It still doesn’t matter that your only living grandparent is technically Odin; that’s rude, and distasteful.”

“But you said I can’t rip out anyone’s throat with teeth either,” he pouted.

“Trust me, you’ll be picking your teeth for days,” Loki said. “It’s not worth it, most of the time. Stick to gutting them, if you can, by ripping open the stomach. Fewer really stringy tendons there, you see, so there’s less-”

“ _Loki!_ ” Pepper and Tony warned in unison.

Both the trickster and his youngest son frowned at them. It was, disconcertingly, the same slightly-petulant frown, on both faces.

“I knew he meant just like... _venison_ ,” Firas muttered. “I wouldn’t really attack anybody who didn’t try to hurt me or my family first.”

His mother snorted and shook her head at him, stroking his hair and scratching a bit as Loki had earlier. “Good. Keep in mind, though, that your family can do them an awful lot of hurt, too, and you should let us,” she reminded.

Tony shook his head, settling further into the couch and wondering briefly how this was his life, now. Nadía rested her head on his shoulder and cuddled a bit against his side until he settled an arm around her loosely. She pulled up a familiar illusory projection: a detailed 3-D model of the Mark III arc-reactor: the first to use an element other than palladium.

“Is this how it works?” she asked, holding it up.

The inventor squinted a little. “You’re so close.”

She muttered something that sounded a bit like a curse, and squinted a little. “I knew it. Was it this part?” Nadía’s fingers pulled at invisible strings until the arc reactor seemed to open up further, and a few minor components changed.

Tony whistled. “Perfect. You figured it out. Now, walk me through it.” He reached over and put his forefinger against Firas’ lips before his son, who was by then leaning across Pepper’s lap with intent to answer, could interrupt. “Ah! Not you! You figured it out last week in the lab, let her do it herself with her materials, hm?”

“Yes, dad,” Firas muttered, and leaned back to sulk slightly. “I thought tendons were good to aim for?” he asked Loki.

“Depends on the tendon,” Pepper said.

Loki smirked at her, based on his son’s surprise.

“But you don’t...” Firas hesitated. “You don’t hunt.”

“Not like you and Loki do, maybe, but sweetie, before my parents passed away, my dad was big on hunting, and a pretty important figure with the Fish and Wildlife service, as well as a huge supporter of the National Parks service,” she told him. “I used to hunt with him, when I was younger, close to your age, even. If you’re talking about deer, and you’re hunting the way you do, you’re good going for tendons in the legs, to bring them down, before you make a kill, as long as you don’t injure them and then not actually catch them, because then they tend to unduly suffer.”

“There are so many reasons I’m in love with you,” the trickster sighed.

“I know,” Pepper shot back, smiling a little wickedly.

Nadía finished her breakdown of how the arc reactor worked, and Tony picked her up and spun her around, making her giggle helplessly and squeal.

Firas snorted at them, but leaned more heavily into Pepper’s touch where she was petting his hair again, although he emitted a deeply dismayed noise when Loki had to stand abruptly to catch Nadía as Tony tossed her his way, and spun her in the opposite direction, making her squeal and flail. They had done the same when Firas had achieved the same understanding of the arc reactor, but that would hardly stop the young shape-shifter from voicing his complaints in the form of a disgruntled growl.

“Don’t fuss,” Pepper soothed. “You had to know it was coming.”

“But I was comfy.”

His mother chuckled at him a little, stood up herself, and pulled him up from the couch to his feet despite his attempts to go limp and resistant. He did eventually stand with her, but only after she shot him a slightly scolding look. She then pulled him into a hug and kissed the top of his head. “You both should get to bed,” she told him, and his sister once Loki set her down.

“But mom, I just did it!” Nadía complained. “I mapped and understand the reactor!”

Pepper turned to her, then, and kissed her forehead too. “And I am so proud of you, Nadía. You’re so brilliant, and you’re utterly incredible-” Another kiss, this time to her nose. “-and you need to sleep so you can keep being just as brilliant and incredible tomorrow instead of a fussy grouch, which you know you would be, without sleep.”

Her daughter huffed, but pulled her into a hug anyway. “Only ‘cause I’m tired.”

“We all are,” Loki assured, as Firas briefly clung to his waist, and then Tony’s, his embrace returned each time, before he let Pepper drag them to their bedroom just down the hall. He wasn’t surprised when Tony’s arms snaked about his waist from behind and the inventor’s brow settled between his shoulder-blades with a faint thunk. “Weary, are you, Tony?”

“Not really tired. Just tired of other people,” the inventor muttered, hands tugging a bit at the trickster’s clothing. “Too much of this. You look good in leather, you know I appreciate it, but can this seriously just go away now?”

Turning in his arms, the trickster pulled him closer, into a slow and appreciative kiss that made Tony sigh deeply and go boneless against him, letting the god mostly support his weight for a bit as he settled his arms loosely around Loki’s shoulders.

When they parted, Loki’s expression was raw and open, caught between awe and possessiveness. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and shook his head, kissing him again, more softly, and almost chastely.

“You’re overwhelmed with warm and fuzzy feelings again, aren’t you?” Tony teased lightly.

“Something like that, yes,” the trickster admitted.

“It’s a good look on you,” Pepper said, returning from the children’s room and pressing against Loki’s back, her arms wrapping around both of them. “Come to bed. Both of you. Now,” she said, pulling them back a step toward the hall, where their own separate (and thoughtfully sound-proofed) bedroom awaited.

They disentangled enough to make it down the hall, and closed the door behind them before their clothing all vanished.

“I don’t know which of you to blame, but thank you,” Pepper teased, a hand on each of their shoulders as she faced them. “You really think they’re okay? Remembering all of that?” she asked softly.

“I believe they are,” Loki said. “We know them. We know how they look when they are in pain, or distressed, or worried, and they are not bothered by this knowledge they have. They are curious, and they are wiser than they know. That is all.”

“Even considering the battle in the asteroid belt?” Pepper asked softly.

Tony and Loki exchanged glances. They had come into direct contact with forces converted by the Universal Church of Truth, there. A lot of blood had been shed, and they hadn’t been able to keep the twins entirely away from it. They’d had to make a desperate run through the middle of the battlefield with them, to reach safer ground and the ship with the supplies and crew they would need for the next steps in their elaborate plans. Loki had fought hard, quite literally red in tooth and claw, to keep his lovers and their children covered and all enemies at bay. He had been partially disemboweled and one of his shoulders badly dislocated by the time they escaped the battle and continued to the next point on their map. Tony had only been a bit better, though his wounds healed much faster than most Loki’s, which had suffered from some poisoning.

The children had nightmares for weeks, after that.

“They saw us all recover,” the trickster god said softly. “If anything, I believe it has made them more fearless, when it comes to matters of battle and war, and it makes it easier for them to have wholehearted faith in us. They were scared, at the time, they wept to see us in pain, but they were reassured and protected, all that time. And we remain whole, even to this day. They are so strong, Pepper.”

“They really are,” Tony agreed.

She nodded. “I’m coming to understand just how much, yes.” Pepper’s lips quirked with a hint of a wicked smile. “They both know how the arc reactor works and they’re not even teenagers, they fight like we do already, and they’re so sharp... I can’t believe how incredible they are, and how lucky I am to have them, and both of you.” She sighed and laughed a little when they both wrapped arms around her then, surrounding her in closeness and nuzzling at her.

“You deserve only the best,” Loki purred. “You deserve this, far more than I.”

“Shut up, you totally deserve me. Both of you assholes do,” Pepper growled, turning her head to kiss Loki over her shoulder, and then the other way to kiss the inventor in front of her. “I call middle.”

Loki chuckled and nipped at the back of her neck to make her shiver. “As my lady wishes. Lead the way, Tony.”

“You’re both ridiculous,” the inventor murmured, turning them about slightly and walking them toward the bed. “Ridiculously _perfect_.”

They laughed at him, until he tripped them up and sent them sprawling onto the bed with noises of open dismay. He laughed at their faces until they both yanked him down with them, and pinned him flat against the bed.

The rest of the night passed from laughter and giggling, to heated sighs, to cries of pleasure, then back to giggling. It really was, Tony insisted again, ridiculously perfect.

 

~~

 

One day, perhaps decades away, or perhaps even a couple of centuries, the universe would be threatened again. Ragnarok would seem to be nigh, and all the realms would be about to fall into chaos. Time itself would begin to unravel, and the greatest mages throughout the realms would band together to hold it steady, but it would be only a temporary solution.

“Brother,” Nadía would whisper. “Do you remember that map?”

“What map?” Firas would inquire.

“The map that brought us here,” she would tease, all too light-hearted in the face of the coming apocalypse.

“Oh, that. I...” His brow would furrow. “It’s so much clearer now.”

“Isn’t it just? Do you see the patterns in it? Do you see us within it?”

The two would look at each other, and into the breach where time and space and matter were falling apart, and then back to one another. They would drop the connections sharing their power with the other mages, and open up a stronger one just between themselves, deeper, opening their minds to one another, and their hearts, as they would weave the map through void in their own minds and saw a pattern no others might be able to grasp. Then they would reach out with it, and let loose their voices.

Words would be spoken older than the universe itself, suddenly understood by two who would never need to be taught them. They would understand time differently, just then: time, and the multiverse, and the fabric of multiple realities. Just the two of them, surrounded by and channeling and weaving all that architecture, to repair what had been shattered, would speak words to make the whole of creation tremble.

Words like that, most mages knew, carried too much power for any single mind to bear, and could do more than shake and shatter the roots of mountains.

They could shatter whole worlds.

Or rebuild them.

Patterns would restore, worlds repair, and from the circle of allied mages, the twins would drop away, followed by the screams of worry from their kin, but when they would awaken, they would not remember the words: only scraps of melody, shared between them. Because they knew they would be needed, they could not both carry the whole of that power, but they well knew each other. They could share, when it might be needed, just as they had when the moment arose and they both saw so clearly, and snapped a bond into place to share the weight of it, to channel it, and survive it intact.

When they would wake, they knew, their family would need them.

There would be tears. There would be shouting and anger and fear.

But there would also be fierce relief and joy.

So awaken they would.

 

~~

 

_At many times, in many places..._

 

“We thought we lost you,” Loki rasped.

“No, no never,” Firas assured.

“You won’t promise to never do that again, will you?” Tony said, resigned but still too relieved to feel more than a little hurt by it.

“Not even a little,” Nadía agreed. “When we’re needed, we will do what we must, but you have to trust us to come back to you. Always.”

“Always?” Pepper insisted.

Both twins smiled. “Always,” they chimed.


End file.
